


Vital Signs

by LuckyDiceKirby



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, spoiler alert it's not very close, the closest I will ever come to writing fluff for this pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:21:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyDiceKirby/pseuds/LuckyDiceKirby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“We’re a morbid pair, aren’t we,” he says. “If this is our idea of pillow talk.”</i> In which Hannibal and Will lie awake and discuss what happens after people die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vital Signs

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is my idea of fluff for this fandom—there’s cuddling, but then they also talk about death the whole time. 
> 
> Warning for brief discussion of suicide. Okay, so ‘fluff’ might be stretching it a little bit.
> 
> Written for [this](http://hannibalkink.dreamwidth.org/1847.html?thread=1845047#cmt1845047) kink meme prompt: Curled up in bed together, Will rests his chin on Hannibal's sternum and asks him what he thinks happens to people after they die.

Although his sleeping schedule has greatly improved since he began doing more and more of his sleeping with Hannibal, some nights, rest still eludes Will. Tonight is shaping up to be one of those nights.

Still, sleeplessness in Hannibal’s bed is preferable to sleeplessness anywhere else—the nightmares rarely seem to find him here, by Hannibal’s side, and when they do, he always wakes with a hand on his cheek, steadying him, pulling him back into his own skin.

So instead of getting up and trying to get some work done, or slinking home to his dogs, as he might have done earlier on in their relationship, Will simply lays his head on Hannibal’s chest and rests a hand on his belly, content to wait out the night in peace. The steady rise and fall of Hannibal’s breath under his hand is almost hypnotic, until it isn’t anymore. Hannibal must be awake, Will realizes. His suspicions are confirmed when one of Hannibal’s hands comes up to cup the back of his head, and his thumb runs down the shell of Will’s ear. 

“You are not sleeping,” Hannibal says, not a question. His voice is deeper, more accented with sleep. Will finds that he likes it.

“Yeah,” he says. “Don’t think I’m gonna be getting much sleep tonight, to be honest.”

Hannibal threads his fingers through Will’s hair and strokes it in a way that could be absent, coming from anyone else; but Will knows that Hannibal does nothing absently. “Well then,” he says, “we shall stay awake and talk.”

“You should sleep,” Will says, muffled into Hannibal’s chest. “You’ve got work in the morning. Patients.”

“And you have your students and the inevitable demands of Jack Crawford, which are surely more taxing than anything any of my patients could come up with. I will only sleep if you do as well.”

Will ducks his head as much as he can, in his position—a reflex to hide his unbidden smile. He thinks Hannibal probably has the motion catalogued and filed away in his mind, neat as everything he ever does. 

“At least one of us should get some rest.”

“You come before my patients, Will. I will survive a few lost hours of sleep, and I would not begrudge you the company.”

Will spreads his fingers out against Hannibal’s chest. “Alright,” he says, and for a few minutes they slip into a comfortable quiet, both counting each other’s breaths. 

At length, Will says, “Do you ever think--” and then cuts himself off.

After a few moments, Hannibal prompts him. “Do I ever think…? What is it, Will?”

“It’s nothing,” says Will.

“Regardless,” Hannibal replies. “I always wish to hear your thoughts, if it is within your power to share them.”

“I guess I was just…wondering.” He laughs a little, self-depreciating. “With all the murders, and the deaths, with things like Tobias Budge—what do you think happens to us? After?”

Hannibal hums, and Will can feel it under his hand. “After death, you mean?” he asks.

“Yeah.” 

“It’s not a matter I’ve given much thought,” Hannibal says.

“Really,” says Will, disbelieving, craning his neck up to look at Hannibal. “Not even when Tobias attacked you?”

“I was rather preoccupied, considering the fight and all the ensuing chaos.”

Will turns back to Hannibal’s chest, watches his hand rise and fall with each of his breaths. “You nearly died.”

“As did you, I recall.” Hannibal’s hold on the back of Will’s head tightens a fraction. “I presume this a topic you have been thinking about recently? Would you care to share your own thoughts on the subject?” 

Will snorts. “How…psychoanalytic of you. Turning the question back on me.”

“That is perhaps one of the perils of taking up with a psychiatrist,” Hannibal allows. “However, in this case, I was merely making conversation.”

Will doesn’t believe him for a second. Hannibal is as deliberate a conversationalist as he is in all other things, which is to say, very. 

However, it’s late, and Hannibal is warm beside him, and Will sees no reason not to answer his question. “I don’t think there’s anything,” he says. “I think our minds blink out into nothing when we die, like a candle that's been snuffed out.”

“And that scares you?” Hannibal asks, quietly.

“No,” says Will. “I think it’s—comforting. Peaceful.” He closes his eyes. “I know that’s very…strange.”

Hannibal leans down slightly, presses a kiss to Will’s forehead. “Not at all,” he says. “Considering the clamor you so often experience within your mind, that you might find the prospect of death comforting is perfectly understandable.” He pauses. “However,” he says, tone heavy. 

“Don’t worry,” Will says, “I’m not going to kill myself. Life isn’t as unbearable as all that." He does not add, _not with your help_ , because he got along fine without Hannibal, if not well, and he could do so again if he needed to.

He just…doesn’t think he really wants to, anymore. But Hannibal probably knows that without needing to be told.

“That is good,” Hannibal says, and Will nods, once, still tucked tight against Hannibal’s chest. 

“So you really have no thoughts on the subject at all,” Will prompts, wishing to turn the conversation back away from himself and his own broken mind. 

“I think it is unknowable,” says Hannibal. “It is a question that humans have asked themselves since their beginnings, and they have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer.” He dips his head, breathes in the scent of Will’s hair. “If I find anything about death comforting,” he says, “it is the fact that it will come to all of us, one day.”

“The great equalizer,” Will says.

“Precisely. Even the most virtuous saint, the most vicious killer—both will die one day, and there is nothing you or I can do to stop it. Death can be postponed, perhaps even for long periods, but never forever.”

Will draws his hand up, moving it from Hannibal’s belly to where he fancies he can feel Hannibal’s heart beating beneath his skin. “And you don’t find that upsetting?” he asks. “That death will find even you one day?”

“I find that it is…” Hannibal pauses, something Will rarely hears him do. “It is one less thing to run from,” he says, eventually. “Or rather—I am free to run from it as long as I like, but when it does eventually catch up with me, I will be safe in the knowledge that there was nothing more I could do to avoid it.”

“I don’t--” Will says, mouth twisting around the words, “I don’t want you to die.”

“Nor do I,” says Hannibal. “I do not cherish the thought of my own death, nor yours. I wish to put both events off as long as possible. But both things will happen, in time. Once I have accepted that, I am free to go about my business unafraid. That is what comforts me about death.”

“And you don’t care what happens after?”

“It is one of the few things I can do nothing about. I do not enjoy dwelling on those things over which I have no control,” says Hannibal. “Although I do find your candle metaphor rather compelling—our minds are the flame, and the bodies we leave behind are just so much leftover wax.”

“Useless without our minds,” says Will.

“Yes,” Hannibal says. “Useless indeed.”

Will can’t help but laugh against Hannibal’s skin. “We’re a morbid pair, aren’t we,” he says. “If this is our idea of pillow talk.”

“I will remind you,” says Hannibal, “that this topic of conversation was _your_ idea, not mine, although I do not find it a displeasing one.” He nudges Will’s head up with his hand, leans his own down to meet him. He catches Will’s gaze and holds it. “I want there to be nothing between us that is off limits.”

“There isn’t,” Will says, meeting Hannibal’s eyes for as long as he can bear, while thinking of the stag he has never told Hannibal about, of Hannibal’s complicity in Abigail’s crimes, of all the things he still has yet to know about this man.

He could ask, if he wanted. The night is still young, and Hannibal would probably answer his questions, would become an open book before Will’s eyes.

Will doesn’t ask, because he prefers to have something in his life left enigmatic, undiscovered. Instead, he says, “Goodnight, Hannibal,” and closes his eyes.

Hannibal wraps his arms around Will’s middle, whispers his own good night against Will’s ear, and Will falls asleep like that, nose pressed into the crook of Hannibal’s neck.

He doesn’t dream of anything at all.


End file.
